CLIPWEAVER is a web site that enables you to WEAVE together video and audio clips with text STORIES in the form of wiki pages.
You can upload both video and audio files to CLIPWEAVER, and then use the online tools to create clips from them. If you wish you can share any of the media objects you upload and any of the stories you write. Or you can keep them private.
The weaving is done by EMBEDDING THE MEDIA DIRECTLY INTO THE STORIES themselves.
The item you are reading now is a STORY called QUICKTOUR.
In fact the whole HELP section in CLIPWEAVER, including QUICKSTART, has been created using CLIPWEAVER stories.
STEP 1: CREATING A STORY
Creating a story is very simple. (NB: You will first need to be registered as a user and logged in. See GETTING STARTED in the HELP section). Click on CREATE STORY in the left menu and a blank Story Body box will appear. Simply type your text into the box. Give the story a name in the Story Name box above and click on SAVE.
The text will appear in the default format you are seeing here. You can change the page and text appearance and format using style macros. Detailed guidance on how to do this is in HELP under FORMATS & STYLE.
STEP 2: UPLOADING MEDIA
Uploading media into CLIPWEAVER is easy. from My Account simply go to My Audio or My Video . (NB: You will first need to be registered as a user and logged in. See GETTING STARTED in the HELP section). Click on Upload in the left menu. Click on the Choose File button and select the file you want to upload and follow the instructions.
For more detailed guidance on uploading media go to UPLOADING AND MANIPULATING MEDIA in the HELP section.
STEP 3: MAKING CLIPS
If you wish to select an extract from your uploaded audio or video stream simply open the object and click on the CLIP option in the player panel. Select the extract you want by moving the red bars to the beginning and end of the clip and click on SAVE.
You can use the DROPBOX and Playlist functions (below) to create new media streams from a series of clips or whole media objects.
More detailed guidance on making clips can be found in HELP under Making a new clip.
STEP 4: EMBEDDING MEDIA INTO STORIES
Here are two media clips:
A video of the famous American blues singer Sonny Boy Williamson.
An audio track of another American blues singer, Hound Dog Taylor, playing his song She's Gone
By clicking on VIEW SOURCE at the bottom of the page you will be able to see the coded instructions for embedding these particular media objects into this story. You will see that the macro (the coded instruction) starts and ends with brackets {}. The first word is media followed by a colon. This is followed by the name of the object. The default player size is small, but you can specify medium or large instead.
So what you are reading here is a story called QUICKSTART with an embedded video and an embedded audio.
More detailed guidance on embedding media can be found in Embedding media in stories in HELP.
STEP 5: CREATING LINKS
In CLIPWEAVER you can create links to other stories, either you own or those of other users.
If you want to see more about the Sonny Boy Williamson video
you can follow this link to Sonny Boy Williamson
If you want to see more about the Hound Dog Taylor audio
you can follow this link to She's Gone
Click on VIEW SOURCE below to see how these links were made. Similar to embedding you will see that the coded instruction is between two {} brackets. As before it specifies media: followed by the object name. This is then followed by a 'pipe' | and type=link.
For more detailed guidance on creating links go to Creating links to CLIPWEAVER stories and media and Creating links to other websites in HELP.
STEP 6: CREATING PLAYLISTS
You can create playlists by copying all the clips you want in the list to DROPBOX.
Click on SAVE AS PLAYLIST.
You will be promoted to give the Playlist a title.
If you wish you can also give the Playlist tag.
From here you can also delete the Playlist, clear it or return to DROPBOX. Or you can save it as media and create a whole new media object.
See Creating a media PLAYLIST in HELP.
STEP 7: CREATING A STORY LIST
To create a story list copy all the stories you want in the list to CLIPBOARD.
Click on SAVE AS LIST.
You will be promoted to give the list a title.
If you wish you can also give the list a tag.
From here you can also delete the list, clear it or return to clipboard.
See Creating a story LIST in HELP.
EXAMPLES
See EXAMPLES for examples of a selection of potential uses for CLIPWEAVER.
In CLIPWEAVER, the system has a default style for each of the stories. The style covers the font name, the font size, the font colour, and the background colour of the story.
For example, the default font for text is one of Ariel, Geneva, Verdana, or Sans-Serif, depending on your browser, with a default font size of 9pt. The default font colour is #333333.
Using what is called CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) styling code, you can change CLIPWEAVER's default appearance. In CSS code the default appearance is expressed like this:
{style} font-size: 9pt; color: #333333; {style}
You can change these settings to give your story a more individual look by inserting CSS coded instructions at the top of the story panel using the {style} macro.
For more background information sbout this styling see CSS Style
For information about how to alter the formatting and style of your story go to the items below:
USEFUL NOTE: To view the codes used to create formatting or links in other stories simply click on VIEW SOURCE at the bottom of the content page. You can copy and paste these instructions to your story page in the usual way.
Try it on this page using the VIEW SOURCE below.
Return to main HELP menu.
These are some examples of using CLIPWEAVER.
Sonny Boy Williamson - a story about the famous blues musician
INSANE SOCIETY - about the not quite so famous punk rock band - although they are big in Ipswich!
WOJNA - about the underground black metal band not wanting to be famous at all
VICTORIA UPHOLSTERY - small business
REFLEXOLOGY TRAINING - training presentation